Religious Cults

As I continue to work through the whole god-guns-government culture being tied to home education (and vice versa) I found this cultural commentary:

Egalitarianism and Homeschooling-

One Member’s Personal Story by Karen Till

. . .The homeschool community is a culture, religion—to some a cult—in itself. I loved many aspects but certain things were hard to understand. For example, many people thought women should dress very modestly and with head coverings. Definitely the more “earthy” you were the better: grind your own grain, natural foods, bake your own bread.

Many also believed that couples should let God plan their family – and I mean no interference on your part—because it showed you had more faith. Moms should stay at home while dads provided for the family. All of these were what proved you were a godly woman. Of course, you needed to do this all with great delight and in an organized fashion.

I began to have difficulty with this culture as our children got older and their gender roles began to be more defined. . .I started to feel pressure about how my kids behaved and what they wore. We were not a family that believed that girls must wear dresses, but many of our friends did.

I should get some extra brownie points for posting this on Labor Day

Sometime ago an alter ego of mine enlisted in a fundie mailing list. So from time to time I receive spam that is just too whack for words.

I present thee, Children's Miracle Music. It is a program that turns children ,"with the push of a button", into happy little slaves who can only buy their parents love with their labor.

[via YouTube - Children's Miracle Music]

Oh.

The program is supposed to shift the role of the parent from "task master" to "self-government trainer".

Wow.

So a kid in this household can only have their mother's and father's affection and special attention if they work for it. This would explain the over-flowing love and kindness of people like Ann Coulter and Pat Buchanan.

By the by : notice how religion is never mentioned but all the visual cues are there.

Thanks to the people of Countdown with Keith Olbermann, for allowing YouTubists to disseminate clips of their shows. Olbermann understand the internets and has been good at getting smart viral marketing rockstars to spread his gospel --just like the people behind The Daily Show did with Jon Stewart.

Anyhoo, check out this interview with Dave Touretzky, a 'cultologist' and one of the lead critics of Scientology. Interesting quote : "Scientology has one set of rules for celebrities and another set of rules for everybody else".

The video is after the jump.